by Joe Rukin
First off I have to appologise if anyone thinks it is a conflict of interests, writing a report on an election I was in. I did ask for someone else to do it, but no-one was forthcoming- possibly down to the fact there were 22 transfer rounds in the count. This report has been updated with new more detailed information on voting stages with a graph, more tables and analysis will follow soon.
First out were David Edgar Hendy Chilcott, who admitted his manifesto was a pisstake, did a few poems and withdrew and Joseph Kisolo-Ssonka SSWS's second candidate, who predictably did not stand. The most memorable speech came from LDYS candidate Mike Burke, who gave over the second minute of his speech as a minutes silence to those who were losing their lives in Iraq. Since then, Burke has 'starred' in a Lib-Dem party broadcast, and is soon to box a union officer at Plymouth Uni SU after the union failed to save one of their satelite sites, with Presidential candidate Omar Bachache acting as fight promoter.
Fletcher, Berger & Hutchins were all elected without transfers, followed closely by Tummelty. Then Alan Cooke Tory the number two spun out, followed by Lib-Dems Emily Fieran-Reid and Mike Burke sandwiching Ian Bruce. The Lib-Dems will be looking hard at their policy to field all of three of their candidates, after getting a combined first round total of 37 between the three of them, which would have left the party in 10th at the outset, if they could have all been channeled one way.
The first round scores were;
1 Kat Fletcher, CfE 109
2 Luicanna Berger, UJS 95
3 Louise Hutchins, SBL 80
4 Gemma Tumelty, OI 59
5 Helen Symons, NOLS 57
6 Tom Whittaker, SWSS 54
7 Sam Dobbyn, CF 49
8 John Dickenson-Lilley, CfE 48
9 Darren Jones, NOLS 46
=10 Alan Clarke, CfE 37
=10 Rob Hayes, Ind/OI? 37
12 James Lloyd, OI 34
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13 George McGlashan, Ind 29
14 Joe Rukin, Ind 25
15 Ben Rogers, OI 24
16 Tom O'Hare, Ind 22
17 Charlotte Dawkins, Ind 20
18 Simon Radford, LDYS 14
19 Mike Burke, LDYS 13
20 Ian Bruce, Ind 11
21 Emily Fieran-Reid, LDYS 10
22 Alan Cooke, CF 9
23 RON 2
The top three were no big surprise. With Flecther coming so close to president, it would have been seen as a disapointment for her to come anywhere but top. Given this, a relatively low number of first prefferences -Lee Sergeant having got 125 after an equally impressive National Secretary campaign- showed CfE had done better in splitting their block vote to enhance their chances of the holy grail of a third BOT place, so essential after they lost out in the pre-conference liberation officer elections.
As usual, the UJS candidate had the best stuff to give away. My dog is overjoyed with the post-election surplus of flashing bouncy balls, and UJS will be overjoyed after last year when Daniel Rose hit freefall, falling from 6th after round one to a final position of 11th, staying in by less than 3 votes. Louise Hutchins result proved that after rumours of deal last year, Student Broad Left had now proved they could attract more votes on their own two feet than SWSS could, and now must have a case for two places on next years left slate, despite losing 10 first preferences in this election.
Labour have five votes more than last year, while the Tories have five votes less, SWSS manage two more. This year CfE have 194, up almost a third from 149 in 2002.
It looked like the top nine would be comfortable with a nine vote gap between 9th & 10th, but more importantly there was only five vote gap between Lloyd & McGlashan, which might not be enough to keep all of the top 12 where they were. However, as the transfers stared coming, predicatbly the last Lib-Dem Simon Radford, started catching up- enough to pass Independent ULU & DMU Presidents Charlotte Dawkins & Tom O'Hare, and then Ben Rogers who had been touted as the OI number 2 candidate.
However, the last 4 places were battled out between James Lloyd, Alan Clarke, Rob Hayes, George McGlashan, Darren Jones & Joe Rukin, with NOLS' Darren Jones starting to look vulnerable, despite having a 17 vote comfort zone after the first round.
CFE had just missed out on a third place on the block last year with Sasha Ismail and this year were almost there with Clarke 10th= with Hayes in the first round. However the only ones moving in the right direction after Radford fell, seemed to be the 'OI number 3' Lloyd, and Rukin, who both passed Clarke, Jones & Hayes.
Rogers managed to hang in until the election of Helen Symons but in the next round it was the fall of George McGlashan which set everything in motion. Even before his transfers were counted, his elimination lowered the quota and elected Dobbyn, Whittaker and Dickenson-Lilley.
The resulting mass left transfer saw Clarke re-enter the top 12 and the election of Rukin who turned out to be everyones second favourite candidate, climbing five places from his original ranking of 14th. Rukin was the only candidate elected who started outside the top 12.*
Lloyd and Jones came in on the same round, with Jones hanging on by 1.21 votes after seeing his 17 vote gap from 13th gnawed away, with a 19-vote lead from Rukin, who took his original 9th placing, ending up as a 5.31 vote deficit. This left a play-off between Clarke and Rob Hayes, with Clarke taking it by 0.73, which might not seem like it, but in Block of 12 terms is a significant margin. Hayes has requested a recount but has since been elected as NUSSL Director For Member Liason.
*Please Note; I am not being a bigheaded bastard, this is just accurate reporting!
Final scores were as follows, numbers in brackets represent the round of the count a candidate was elected/eliminated in. After brackets is the climb/fall in ranking places.
1 Fletcher 109 (1) 0
2 Berger 95 (2) 0
3 Hutchins 80 (3) 0
4 Tumelty 72.72 (8) 0
5 Symons 69.52 (15) 0
6 Dickenson-Lilley 68.93 (17) +2
7 Dobbyn 67.61 (17) 0
8 Whittaker 67.18 (17) -2
9 Rukin 68.19 (18) +5
10 Lloyd 66.35 (18) +2
11 Jones 62.88 (18) -2
12 Clarke 62.40 (23) -2
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13 Hayes 61.67 (23) -3
14 McGlashan 47.17 (17) -1
15 Radford 30.92 (16) +3
16 Rogers 29.67 (13) -1
17 O'Hare 27.07 (12) -1
18 Dawkins 20.29 (11) -1
19 Burke 17.66 (10) 0
20 Bruce 11.66 (9) 0
21 Cooke 10.75 (8) +1
22 Fieran-Reid 10.67 (6) -1
23 RON 2 (4) 0 |  |
It should be pointed out at this point that the figures are not wrong. It may seem like Rukin should be 7th in terms of total votes, but this election happened after Sam Dobbyn & Tom Whittaker, and although the score is higher than theirs it will certainly include some votes which were transfers from them. This is more acurately shown in the graph
Besides the fact it is evident CfE have gained a place, how you translate these changes depends totally on how you define Belle Turner and Daniel Yeo on last years Block. Both ran as Independents with varying rumours as to their organisedness. Whilst neither displayed the givewaway pastel sticker (can you believe they didn't change that?), both had a reasonable budget on material, with Turner supporters sporting cow bells and Yeo's fcuk nus t-shirts. However, whilst both were eager to get on with the job this year, both were frozen out this year, enough to not consider restanding.
Thanks have to go to Mel Bean for the photo, Trent president-elect Matt Wallace for being in the bear suit, but most of all Stuart Tomlinson who was tireless in his efforts, both in covering conference live from the winter gardens for educationet and by helping out so much in my election.
Other Committees
Others elected to various committees were;
Elections; Jonathan Whitehead
Finance; Craig Beaumont (by election), Peter Hanafin
HENC; Jenny Brown, Louise Yates, Chris Neville-Smith, Iain Lindley, Katy Davies
FENC; David Braniff-Herbert, Samuel Margrave, Emily Anfu, Niki Cairns, Luke Graham
Rules Revision; Keith Underhill, Will Howells
Steering; John Warren, Louise Hall, Will Wiles, Ali Henderson, Danny Steir
NUS Conference 2003
A First Timers View
On the Fringe
Cynicism, and why I don't trust it
Presidential Election
Other Full-Time Elections
Block of Twelve and Committee Elections
NUS Conference Overview
Conference Live
